My boyhood dream was to acquire a big motorcycle and become a Knight of the open highway.
But getting a license to drive a bike was a completely different story! I had to learn the rules of the road by heart and practice driving so I could pass safely between strategically placed pylons without touching them. I had to learn to maneuver through crowded city streets, never forgetting to signal my intentions to other drivers...
It was a long and arduous process. But my driving instructor was philosophical about it.
I remember one particularly difficult lesson. I had taken a fall and simply could not steer the bike around a curve between the obstacles. I got upset and started to doubt I could ever succeed. "It's no good, I'll never be pass the test!" I cried.
"Calm down," my instructor said. "You may not know it, but you're making good progress every day."
I'd been a teacher myself, so I knew about the platitudes teachers use to encourage their students. Which is why I didn't believe a word he said.
"It'll take more than a cliché to convince me of that," I said.
"Tonight when you go home," he replied, "put a lentil seed in some moist cotton. Then, every day, watch it grow for half an hour. Come back and tell me what you see."
Naturally I didn't see anything. I played the game for three days, then gave up.
But finally, two months after I started and with much effort and concentration, I obtained my license to drive a bike.
On the day I took my exam my lentil seed sprouted. A tiny green shoot had pierced through the cotton. In a flash I understood the meaning of what my instructor had said.
It's impossible to make a seed grow. It has to stay underground until the moment it is ready to break through into the open air. Even if the seed were in a hurry to grow, it could not have speeded up the process. Sometimes it takes time and quiet for things to sprout in us, and come to fruition.
Although undetectable, new seeds are always present, making slow but steady progress inside us, preparing to burst forth and bloom at the right time.
"Trees teach us patience - they do not break at the first sign of a storm." Carl Beaupré
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